Talk with your lender about this proposal...  1) Get a solid quote on the roof replacement and share it with your lender.    2) Put the funds in escrow with your bank for the sole purpose of replacing the roof.    3) Close on the property.    4) Install the roof.    5) Get reimbursed for roof expense out of escrow.Most banks are fine with something like this if they know their downside is covered.  

What are your biggest challenges as a new real estate investor?

As others mentioned, look at what other debt you have and make sure the highest interest debt is paid off first.In a perfect world, you'd figure out where your money would make the biggest bang (ie the most money) and put it there whether that was a paying down a mortgage or investing in something else.

What's your biggest challenge in funding a fix and flip?

Very possible biggest factors are can you find the deals that will be profitable (I work with auctions and that varies hugely) and how fast can you execute them and move to the next one, remember that you have time on the market and closing time once under contract (usually an extra month) before you get the capital back out. 

Submit all of your info etc and see how much you qualify for.This will change in the future as you start to do other deals, but this is the best way starting out and doing a house hack etc.As for college, I went to college and it was one of the biggest financial mistakes I have ever made.

Based on 45 years in real estate, I’ve experienced these types and I believe they are the biggest time suckers to be avoided as quickly as possible Types of Customers to Avoid1.

The median price is still just $90k and I wouldn't be surprised to see it double again pretty quickly.The other nice thing about Michigan is property taxes are capped at the rate of inflation with a max annual increase of 5% per year.The biggest drawback of Detroit is tenant quality IMO.

Downside is bad tenants, depreciating trailer if you don’t own the land, and restrictions if the park if the owned by someone else.

The one thing I do not like is that you cannot serve him personally which is for me the biggest hurdle.